The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee

Subtitled "A Biography of Cancer," Mukherjee's Pulitzer Prize winning tour de force combines an amazing amount of complex research with wonderfully clear writing. At 470 pages, it seems long, but there is enough drama and personality (of both patients and scientists) to keep the reader involved. I think of it as a "history" of cancer, but the author probably chose the word "biography" because of the way cancer seems uncannily human in its behavior. As he puts it on page 388, "Down to their innate molecular core, cancer cells are hyperactive, survival-endowed, scrappy, fecund, inventive copies of ourselves." The book gradually delves into the "pathological mitosis" that is cancer and winds up with descriptions of the contemporary genetics inspiring drugs that intervene with runaway cell replication. An excellent book and good read.

The Dressmaker of Khair Khana by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon

Kair Khana is a section of Kabul, Afghanistan. This true tale of a family who lived through Taliban rule there focuses on the second of five daughters whose energy and ambition drives her to start a dress making business in the family home. Since women were no longer allowed to go to school or hold a job, this was a dangerous enterprise. How the girls survived and supported the rest of their family is an inspiring story that gives an inside look at what it was like to live in Kabul in the 1990s. A short, fast read.

The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst

The eponymous line of beauty is the s-curved line called the ogee. It appears several times in this novel in relation to art and architecture and to beauty in the abstract. The son of a British MP has graduated from Oxford and invited a college friend to live in the family home. The young people are beginning to find their way in the greater world of London and its suburbs. There is the usual British class consciousness and much graphic gay sex in this novel which won the Man Booker Prize. A good read.

Cleopatra by Stacy Schiff

Schiff's biography of Cleopatra is a remarkable work of history that well deserves the Pulitzer Prize it won. The detailed bibliography and references to classic sources indicate a serious depth to the underlying research. Schiff pictures Cleopatra as more a charismatic and intelligent leader than a great beauty; Mark Antony's wife was said to be more beautiful. There is a great deal of material on military and political activities of the age and the splendors of Egyptian wealth. This is probably because very little is really known of Cleopatra as an individual.